Apparatus for automatically extracting oil from seeds.



'PATENTED EEB.1,0, 1903;,

V A. B. LAWTHER. APPARATUS P013 AUTOMATIGALLY EXTRAGTING OIL PR-0M SEEDS.

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No. 720,532. PATENTEDFBB. 10, 1903.

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APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRAGTING OIL FROM SEEDS.

APPLICATION FILED NOV.15, 1901.

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'No. 720,532. PATENTBD FEB. 10, 1903.

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APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRAGTING OIL FROM SEEDS.

APPLICATION FILED NOV. 15, 1901.

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No. 720,532. PATENTED. FEB. 10, 1903. A. B. LAWTHER.

APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRAGTING OIL PROM SEEDS. APPLIOATION FILED NOV.15,1901.

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APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRAGTING OIL PROM SEEDS.

APPLICATION FILED Nov. 15. 1901. 7 Nb MODEL. 17 SHEBT8S HEBT 11.

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APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRAGTING OID-LEROM SEEDS.

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No. 720,532. I I PATENTED FEB. 10, 1903.

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APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY BXTRAOTING OIL PROM SEEDS.

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NITED STATES PATENT' OFFICE.

ALFRED B. LAWTHER, OF SYRACUSE, NEW YORK, ASSIGNOR TO' FREDERICK O. SWANNELL, OF CHICAGO, ILLINOIS.

APPARATUS FOR AUTOMATICALLY EXTRACTING OIL FROM SEEDS.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 720,532, dated February 10, 1903.

Application filed November 15, 1901. Serial No. 82,469. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, ALFRED B. LAWTHER, a citizen of the United States, residing in Syracuse, in the county of Onondaga and State of New York, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Apparatus for Automatically Extracting Oil from Seeds, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to apparatus for extracting oil from seeds after the same have been crushed in the usual manner.

In the ordinary process of extracting oil from seedsas, for example, linseed-oil from flaxseedas at present practiced the flax- I 5 seed being properly cleaned is first crushed between rollers until the seed is transformed into meal. The meal is then heated and moistened by stirring it in a heated kettle. The heated and moistened meal is next formed into a flat oblong cake, usually three inches in thickness and thirteen by thirty-two inches in area. A cloth is wrapped around this cake under the bottom of the cake, with the ends brought up around the ends of the cake and overlapping each other on top of the cake, the material of this preparatory cake having been usually solidified to some extent by the operator in order toform it and facilitate its handling and for the reduction of its bulk. The cake being thus formed and Wrapped in cloth is placed in one of the compartments of a multiple-chamber hydraulic press, the hydraulic apparatus of which press commonly uses as'a liquid in its operation some of the oil which is being manufactured, because oil is a better'material than water for this purpose, and the oil being identical with the product of the press leakage will do no harm by mixture therewith. The power '40 being applied to the press, the platen continues to rise, closing up the chambers and pressing the oil from the cake until it has forced out all that it is practical to extract. The time employed for the pressing varies somewhat in difiterent mills; but the better practice indicates that the cake should re-- main in the press under pressure for about fifty minutes, and allowing ten minutes for filling the press, 850., this gives about one pressing to the hour for each press, and two men are able to handle from five to seven presses. This process now in universal use for many yearsis the one described in my Patent No. 168,164, dated September 28, 1875, in general terms. Although almost all milling operations in other than oil-mills have become in modern times as, for example, in flouring-millslargely automatic, and although owing to thev small margin of profit in the manufacture of oil automatic operations in its manufacture have long been sought and desired, owing to the nature of the material to be handled and the ponderous character of the pressing machinery it has been thought by everyone, so far as I can learn, impossible to make such a mill automatic, either by carrying the cakes to the presses or by carrying the presses to the cake, and the fact is that a large part of the time of the men employed in an oil-mill during its operation is consumed in carrying the formed cake to the presses, as'well as in forming the cake, and until the present invention no attempt has been made to render the operation of such a mill thoroughly automatic.

In the present invention for several reasons, amongwhich may be named the prime difficulty of conveying the formed cake from the place where it is made to the various presses of the mill and the difficulty of deliv- 8o ering such cake to the various chambers of the press, I prefer, notwithstanding the great Weight of the presses relative to the small weight of'the cake, to bring the presses one after another to the cake-forming apparatus and tolower the presses after lifting to full height, so that chamber after chamber shall come into position to receive the cake from the forming-machine without bodilymovement of the latter and to discharge the cakefrom the presses by a like lowering of the presses step by step. To accomplish this, I provide a stationary heater, a stationary cake-forming machine, to which latter the meal is conveyed from the heater by an ordinary conveyor, and 5 I mount a series of hydraulic presses-say, for example, twenty-four such presses-on a turn-table which moves around on a fixed track with a step-by-step motion, one step for each press, and provide said turn-table with means for raising and lowering the presses bodily with a step-by-step movement corrospending to the distance between the cakechambers in the press.

Vhen automatic devices are of moderate dimensions, there is ordinarily no great diflicultyencounteredin constructingrigid framework to carry the usual cams, levers, shafts, gearing, and other mechanical movements commonly employed in such devices; but when the several parts are necessarily much farther apart and some of them very heavy the framing becomes a difficult problem, an expensive thing,and thereis a much increased difficulty in subsequent maintenance. It is for this reason that I have preferred to carry out my invention by'generally effecting the required movement by means of hydraulic engines operated, preferably, by a liquid consisting of the kind of oil being manufactured in the mill, the flow of the liquid being controlled by valves located at whatever distance desired from the cylinders of the hydraulic engines, connection being made from the several valve-boxes to their respective cylinders by pipes, which in their nature do not require in all parts to be in any exact position, but may run anywhere, and which consequently do not need any special means of support or any exactness of alinement, such as is required by shafting and other mechanical devices. As these pipes may be of ample size and as liquids are practically incompressible, the motions of the pistons follow promptly the movements of their respective valves, and considerable distances, if required, may be covered without the special framing which would be necessary if long rigid elements, such as shafts, &c., were used. The cams, levers, and other mechanical devices which initially operate the valves may themselves be moved from an ordinary steam-engine or prime motor, communicated through the medium of the usual shaftingand belting not requiring special construction.

The invention consists in the novel devices and in the novel combinations of parts and devices herein shown and described, and specified more particularly in the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, forming a part of this specification, and in which similar characters indicate like parts throughout the several figures, Figure l is a top or plan view of the mill-floor, showing the crushing-rolls for crushing the seed, the heater or heaters for heating the meal, the cake-forming machine, the presses, and the cake-discharging mechanism and the stripping device for stripping the cloth from the pressed cake. Fig. 2 is a central vertical section showing the cakeforming machine, the apparatus for conveying the cake into the press, the presses mounted upon a turn-table, the means for lifting and lowering the presses, and the means for discharging the pressed cake from the press, and the brake-detent apparatus for stopping the turn-table at the required position. Fig.

3 is a horizontal sectional plan showing the prime motor, the pump for operating the l1ydraulic engine, the accumulators, and sundry pipes and other mechanism. Fig. 4 is a similar view to Fig. 3, but showing some parts concealed in the latter figure. Fig. 5 is a sectional front elevation of a part of the apparatus. Fig. 6 is a detail view upon a larger scale than the previous figures, showing the lower end of the press and the device for leveling the same. Fig. '7 is a sectional elevation of Fig. 1, omitting the presses for sake of clearness. Fig. 8 is an enlarged sectional view of some of the parts shown in the previous figures. Figs. 9, 10, and 11 are enlarged Views of portions of the mechanism. Fig. 12 is an enlarged view of the turn-table valveactuating cam. Fig. 13 is a view of the cam for actuating the valve of the press-lifting cylinder. Fig. 1a is an obverse view of the same, and Fig. 15 is a sectional view thereof. Fig. 16 is a view of the cam which operates the valve for controlling the cylinder that operates the molder-table and cake former. Fig. 17 is a view of the detent-brake apparatus. Figs. 18, 19, and 20 show the moldertable, the cake-o utter, and the cloth-throwing device for wrapping the cloth on the cake. Fig. 21 shows the apparatus used in connection with the cake-former to determine the thickness of the cake. Fig. 22 shows the cutting-jaws and operating device for cutting oil": the cake when it is formed. Fig. 23 is a cross sectional view of a soft cake as it lies in the press on the plate which constitutes the bottom of one of the chambers of the press, and this figure shows the grooves in the plate for carrying off the oil and also the cloth on the cake. Fig. 24 is a sectional view of one of these press-plates (there being no cake prescut) and a view of the cake-expeller. Fig. 25 is a vertical section of the upper part of the cake-former, and Fig. 26 is a bottom view of said cake-former. Fig. 27 is a plan view of the apparatus for pulling the cake in the press, which is called the cake puller. Fig. 28 is a section of Fig. 27 on the line 28 28. Fig. 29 is a vertical section of the center cylinder on the line 29 29 of Fig. 27. Fig. 30 is a horizontal sectional View of the valves for controlling the flow of liquid to and from the hydraulic cylinder of the press. Fig. 31 is a side elevation of the valve-operating levers shown in Fig. 30. Fig. 32 is an end view of one of the lovers shown in Fig. 31. Fig. 33 is a view similar to Fig. 31, showing the valve-leversin different positions. Fig. 34 is a face view of the valve-box shown in Fig. 30. Fig. 35 shows the two valve-plugs of said valve; and Figs. 36, 37, and 38 show an outline of the valve-opening when fully closed, partly closed, and fully opened, respectively. Fig. 39 is a sectional view of a hydraulic cyli.ndersuch, for example, as the one which lifts and lowers the presses-and is intended to illustrate a means of aetuating valves by this cylinder for controlling or the mill.

producing a subsequent movement of some other part, so that the required movements will follow in their proper order.

In said drawings, 1 represents a stack of ordinary five-high crushing-rolls such as are used in oil-mills for crushing the seeds and which are driven in the ordinary manner by the belt from the shafting that receives its power from the prime mover of the mill. This prime mover is indicated at 2 in Fig. 3 and is there shown to be a steam-engine. The heater or heaters are of the usual construction, as shown at 3 3, and consist of the customary jacketed cylindrical kettle and revolving stirrer-arms, one of which delivers steam to the meal. This mechanism is also or may be most conveniently driven by the prime mover of the mill through the usual gearing and shafting. The crushed seed is delivered by a conveyer or elevator (not shown in the drawings) from the crushingrolls to the heaters, which are thus kept at all times properly full. A door or gate in the side of the heater permits the meal to flow over the lip of the gate as the heater fills above a certain point, so that the moistened and heated meal will after remaining the necessary time in the heater be constantly delivered therefrom by this overflow action of the screw conveyor 4, the screw of which is operated from the shafting of the mill. This screw conveyer carries the heated and moistened meal to the forming-machine 5, which consists of the cylindrical tub or vessel 6, containing a pair of revolving arms 7 7,

which are caused to continually rotate by means of power derived from the shafting of This tub may preferably be also provided with an overflowgate to prevent the meal rising above a certain height therein, said overflow-lip delivering the overflowmeal to the elevators 8 8, which convey it back to the heaters. It will beunderstood that the initial regulation ofthe amount of meal delivered to the apparatus should be made by regulating the amount of seed delivered to the crushing-rolls. The small unavoidable variation in the amount delivered from the crushing-rolls will be self-regulated by the return-conveyer above mentioned. Hitherto the usual method of forming the cake preparatory to placing it in the press has been suchthat cakes of varying density were produced. It is one of the objects of the present mechanism to produce cakes of uniform density and consistency throughout their whole extent, so that the work of the presses will be uniform and the amount of oil left in the different parts of the same cake will be the same. This is an important thing in the millwork, as it enables the operator to determine by proper tests exactly what heis doing at all times, which cannot be done where the different parts of the cake are not uniformly the same.

In the bottom of the meal-tubG is the rectangular oblong opening 9, the bottom of which is closed bythe cutting-slides 10 10,the means for operating which is presently to be explained. The opening 9 is" of the lateral dimensions of the cake, and the meal at the bottom of the tub is forced through this opening by a vertically-descending plunger 11. The head of this plunger is composed of a number of separate heads 12 12, 850., (see Fig. 26,) each of which is mounted upon a separate stem 13, sliding in the plunger -head against the pressure of a spring 14, as will be clearly understood by reference to Fig. 25.

Another important result produced by the sectional yielding head of the plunger in addition to producing a uniform pressure throughout. the whole cake and a consequent uniform density of the cake is a great saving in the wear of the press-cloths and also the porous press-mats. If the cake be not of uniform density throughout, the great pressure applied in the presses not being properly distributed tends to cut the fibers of the cloth at the denser portions of the cake and also to cut the mat at these places, which has been an item of very great expense hitherto in oilmills' and which I have by this means almost entirely eliminated, so that the cloths and mats will last a much longer time. Underneath the meal-tub and under the opening9 is a table 15, which is vertically movable in apredetermined manner and with acertain power of resistance, as will be subsequently explained. At the proper time the plunger 11 descends upon the meal in the tub and forces a quantity of it down into the opening 9 and through said opening, the sliding gates 10 10 having been withdrawn. At this time the table 15 should be in its uppermost position and in contact or nearly incontact with the bottom of the opening. The plunger 11 forces the meal down against the table 15 with a power sufficient to move said table downward, thus compressing the meal with a pressurewhich may preferably be in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty pounds to the square inch, which will not be sufficient to drive the oil out of the cake, but yet sufficient to compress the meal firmly enough. When a sufficient quantity of meal has been extruded upon the table, the downward motion of the table is arrested and the plunger continues to descend to its lower limit, each of the yielding faces accommodating itself to the slight variation in the density of the meal which may lie immediately beneath it, whereby a uniform density is secured throughout the meal. The plunger now begins to return and the cut-off gates close, cutting off the cake'from the rest of the meal and closing the bottom of the opening preparatory to another similar operation. The table upon which the cake lies on the press-cloth isnow released from this arrest or temporary stoppage and descends to a lowermost position, at which position the cloth is folded over the cake andfrom whence the cloth-covered cake is delivered to the press. 

